After A Few Months

I wouldn't admit to wanting realism on this forum. Of late there has been a strong opposition towards simmers here.

I stopped playing months ago, but stick around to get notified of any updates.

I also play with a controller using the stick for the swing.  

Swing difficulty - Hard

Putting difficulty - Hard

Swing Meter - Off

Power Boost - Off

Spin Control - Off

Shot Shaping - Off 

Lie Effect - On

Zoom - Off

Aiming Arc - Off

Putting Aim Point - At Cup

Putt Read - Off

Putting Grid - Off

Wind Gust - On

Wind Reading - Direction Only

Elevation - Off

Auto Tap In - Off

Mulligan - Off

I turned Shot Shaping off because the way it was implemented is gimmicky... and is more a gamer thing than how you would execute a shot in real life.

I agree that implementing a 3D image on a 2D screen doesn't translate very well. But EA does it much better than 2K, both in being able to distinguish the breaks on the greens and the mechanics of the worm cam.

All the short shots around the green look fine but the ball physics are terrible. The FLOP and PICK shots are like throwing darts... the ball will check and stick where it lands. And once you have a few skill points added, you will be inside 3 feet on a regular basis. Shots coming out of rough shouldn't have nearly as much spin... grass being between the grooves and the ball and all.

To me the putting is also terrible... the animation has the ball out on the toe of the club. I cringe everytime I see it. 

The putting physics are also terrible... if you ask a PGA Pro they would tell you it is like putting on an arborite countertop. The greens on this game are incredibly slow... which I have no issue with. But EA should have added additional user selectable green speeds to make the game more realistic.

Also putting is extremely easy... once you get a feel for how to read the slope meters. You can easily lag every putt to inside 3 feet from just about any distance. And with a little practice making putts inside 20 feet becomes a eegular thing.

I think that it has been agreed on by everyone that EA's implementation of RNG is awful. And no one understands why it was done this way.

When I stopped playing I was playing a character without skill points or spec's and was shooting around par. Usually one or two strokes under. With my character fully powered up... being double digits under par was the norm.

The group I play with refuse to play this game... of the 4 of us..  2 deleted it off their system after about 6 rounds.

The game looks pretty good, I like the swing. But the game lacks realism for anyone looking for more of a simulation experience.

They're talking about Random Number Generator. The idea is that if you hit your shot perfectly, it can end up anywhere in that big circle. And the way the game is built, the more you progress and adding shots specs, the smaller the circle is getting.

@Katybee_1313oh ok, I'm still pretty new to this and due to a boring life I earlier in the year started using my PS3 again.

I decided to get a PS5 a few months back, because the golf game Tiger Woods PGA Tour 14 became very frustrating. Due to not purchasing the game at the time as I was working or had other things to do, I missed out on around 10 courses because EA Sport no longer supported the game, and I expect due to missed updates I struggled to get past season 5 because the game would completly freeze up and became unplayable.

I now have the new game and due to to much time on my hands play quite a few hours a day on career mode. it's got to easy even playing Tour, but very frustrating playing Sim because I have no idea how to read the puts even as a golfer that got down to an 11 handicap

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@SpurS1964 wrote:
@ELF014just asking because even though I have played a lot of golf in my life, but due to health I no longer can.

what is RNG?

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As @Katybee_1313 stated it stands for RANDOM NUMBER GENERATOR... and introduces some randomness to your shots. 

Something that is actually welcome by me, but EA took it way too far. I still believe that people should be rewarded for the quality of the shot that was executed. I am not convinced that RNG works in this game. I have seen what appears to be well executed shots fall well outside the circle.

The career mode is well implemented overall in this game. It is too bad the gameplay is so poor it makes career mode irrelevant, I had to go full on sim mode without skill points and specs to make it somewhat competitive, and in the end even that wasn't enough. I had the lead in every tournament by Saturday.

The game isn't terrible... but they need to add some additional toggles for things like disabling the aiming reticule, additional green speeds to expand the difficulty of the game. NONE of this would affect the current users... it would only add playability for those looking for more of a challenge.

They really need to address the ball and cup physics as well.

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@SLouis2001 wrote:

After a few months playing EA PGA Tour here is my opinion.  As an avid golfer for over 30 years I am looking for realism.

My biggest disappointment with the game are the full swing shots.  With other golf games I knew or thought I knew after a shot what I had done wrong in my swing to cause the ball to go off line.  In EA Sports ball flight for full shots seems random to me and the developers have never detailed the mechanics of a good swing using the stick method.  I realize there is the RNG but in any computer golf game the results of a shot should to some degree depend on the "skill" of the player and I don't mean purchasing skills like you do in this game.  I understand that the difference in your backswing vs. your downswing impacts the power but there is no satisfaction from hitting a good shot because I don't know what I did to produce that or how much RNG impacted it.  I really think EA should come out with an explanation of how the stick swing works.  

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I would agree, realism is what most people want to see in this game, arcaders and sim-ers alike. Personally, I want a realistic golf experience, but I want to be allowed to master the game as I can't do IRL - I don't want false randomness being input just to hamstring my scores.

Your point about swing feedback has been one of my biggest gripes. When I get a perfect/perfect, straight swing feedback, explain why my shot goes outside of the "random landing zone" circle? Tell me WHY I missed so I can correct it. When I see the line go a little off the swing line, I know what I need to do. The game tells me perfect/perfect, straight swing all day but my shots don't match it. Do I need to upgrade my caddy? (if only)

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@Beerrun4u wrote:

I would agree, realism is what most people want to see in this game, arcaders and sim-ers alike. Personally, I want a realistic golf experience, but I want to be allowed to master the game as I can't do IRL - I don't want false randomness being input just to hamstring my scores.

Your point about swing feedback has been one of my biggest gripes. When I get a perfect/perfect, straight swing feedback, explain why my shot goes outside of the "random landing zone" circle? Tell me WHY I missed so I can correct it. When I see the line go a little off the swing line, I know what I need to do. The game tells me perfect/perfect, straight swing all day but my shots don't match it. Do I need to upgrade my caddy? (if only)

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You would think people would want realism in the game, but that is not the sense I get from many of the responses on the forum. What I don't understand is why EA couldn't have provided a platform for both the arcade and the sim crowd.

But I fully agree with you... the baseline should be a quality shot should have a quality result.

Someone has suggested that once you skill up the game will play correctly. If this was EA's intent it is a backassward idea, but would be consistent with other decisions that have been made.

Skills and Specs should make executing shots easier... it shouldn't punish you for making a good shot.